Kirk Wallace Johnson is an American author, journalist, and founder of The List Project,[1] a not-for-profit organization that helps resettle Iraqi refugees who previously worked for the U.S. government during the Iraq War.

In addition to studying in Syria on a Foreign Language Acquisition Grant (2001), Johnson received a Fulbright Scholarship to conduct research on political Islamism in Egypt (2002–03).

Johnson was opposed to the Iraq War, but felt an ethical obligation to help with the reconstruction efforts, which he supported as a way of righting a wrong.

In response, he was flooded with petitions from thousands of refugees, leading him to found the List Project to Resettle Iraqi Allies,[10] a non-profit that marshaled hundreds of attorneys from the nations top law firms to represent their cases on a pro bono basis.

His work was profiled in 60 Minutes, the Today Show, The New Yorker, and This American Life; it was the subject of his 2013 memoir To Be a Friend Is Fatal: the Fight to Save the Iraqis America Left Behind.